Power Outage at TSMC Tainan Factory Raises Concerns Over Semiconductor Supply Shortage

[Asia Economy Reporter Yujin Cho] A temporary power outage occurred at TSMC's Tainan factory, the world's largest semiconductor foundry company serving major clients such as Apple and Qualcomm. The industry is closely monitoring whether this incident will exacerbate the semiconductor supply shortage.

According to major foreign media, at around 11:06 AM on the 14th, a power cable was cut within the Tainan Science Park, causing a blackout lasting about six hours.

It is reported that the outage was caused when Wistron, a major iPhone assembler, cut a 161kV transmission cable owned by TPC buried underground during excavation work for the construction of a new factory within the science park.

After the power outage, the power supply unit was not restored until 6:23 PM the same day, but power supply was resumed by operating an emergency diesel generator.

According to sources in the Taiwanese industry, the production loss caused by this outage is expected to reach several million dollars.

Although the official damage assessment has not yet been compiled, about 30,000 wafers in production are believed to have been affected by this outage. The estimated damage is approximately 1 billion New Taiwan Dollars (about 39.3 billion KRW).

Due to the nature of semiconductor microfabrication at the nanometer scale, even a short-term power outage can lead to the disposal of products.

Some experts believe this outage will further worsen the global semiconductor supply shortage, which has already spread across all products from home appliances like washing machines to automobiles.

Meanwhile, TSMC is expected to address the losses and impacts caused by the power outage, as well as issues related to industrial water shortages and power supply problems due to the worst drought in 56 years, during its Q1 earnings announcement on the 15th.